Thomas Boswell

“The crowd and its team had finally understood that in games, as in many things, the ending, the final score, is only part of what matters. The process, the pleasure, the grain of the game count too.”

“Familiarity, and a few dozen cheap flyballs off the Monster, breed contempt.”

“[B]aseball is diffracted by the town and ballpark where it is played... Does baseball, like a liquid, take the shape of its container?”

“What most people want to keep under wraps (from reporters) is trivial: petty jealousies, professional feuds, etc. By contrast, most of the things they have thought about most seriously all their lives they are perfectly winning to uncover.”

“More than any other American sport, baseball creates the magnetic, addictive illusion that it can almost be understood.”